


These High School Days

by anawfulybigadventure



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Slice of Life, Subways, Teenagers, Yoneda Kou AU, different schools, modern japan, ~middle school past~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 22:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17129612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anawfulybigadventure/pseuds/anawfulybigadventure
Summary: Now, every once in a while they exchanged enough trivialities for Sakura to get a glimpse into Sasuke's high school life.Middle school friends, Sasuke and Sakura, now go to different high schools. They ride the same train, though.





	These High School Days

**Author's Note:**

> if you think - hm, did i read something like that before... You Probably Have.

It’s been almost a year since graduating from middle school.

High school isn’t all that different, but very different in small ways. Sakura enjoys the classes, and her classmates. It is good that she and Naruto happened to be placed yet again in the same class. Ino goes to that school as well, but her classroom is quite far from theirs.

Sakura decided not to join any kind of extra-curriculum clubs. Her muscles occasionally ache from the desire to stretch, but the decision not to join the boxing club came easily, she told her parents that she wanted to focus on her studies, a lie that was only an excuse.

Somehow she and Naruto found themselves with a new friend - Sai, so the lunches they eat yet again in the company of three.

Surprisingly, the biggest difference, as it feels for her, is the new commute to the school. She has to walk about 10 minutes to the metro station, and then the long ride for the city - about forty minutes or so. She likes it. She has to wake earlier than usual, but that allows her to walk in the waking hours of the day, sun barely awake, nature quiet, air itself different with the complete utter silence. The walk back, after school is pleasant as well. Ino lives closer to the city, so she gets on the train on a different station, but after school, when the full day is ahead of them, they can get out together. She and Ino try to make time after school to go to either of their houses, their chatter somehow full with the sounds of nature’s chatter - birds flying, wind and trees alive, sun blazing.

Their village doesn’t have the high school, so it’s not that surprising that Sakura sees a lot of her fellow middle-school classmates on the train. She rarely sees Naruto on the train, but that is because he is constantly late, and after school, he usually sits in detention.

She sees Sasuke, though.

He doesn’t go to their school. He goes to Orochimaru’s school. Just as he said he would. It is so near their school they even get off on the same station.

He and Ino get on the train on the same station. One time, Sakura couldn’t get ahold of her curiosity, and asked Ino if they walk together, but apparently his and her house are located in different directions from the station. Sakura asked Ino if they ever talk while they wait for the train to arrive, but Ino just looked at her like she’s gone mad. In the high school, Ino easily found herself a boyfriend, Shikamaru, so she liked to pretend that she couldn’t remember a thing about her childhood crush on Sasuke in elementary school.

Sakura worried.

Alright, she felt positively jealous, and could barely hold back her inner self that told her to pick up the boxing again, only to implant some healthy fear in Ino.

The first time she noticed Sasuke using the same train, it’s been a bit into the year, and, somehow, she was surprised. Even though she knew his school was close to theirs, she thought Itachi would drive Sasuke to school. Things were awkward at first, they didn’t part on the best of turns, none of them did, that slow month before their graduation.

She still remembered her heart-broken, wild confession, her tears.

Naruto and Sasuke’s terrible fight cemented their drift away from each other.

She hasn’t expected to see him quite so regularly.

Who knows, who spoke first, careful, polite conversation of people who once were friends, only she remembered that there was a short time in which they didn’t, at the beginning of the year - maybe the memories were too fresh, but she remembered being hyper-aware of him in that slow torturous time.

Now, every once in a while they exchanged enough trivialities for Sakura to get a glimpse into his high school life.

He has new friends, together they seemed to have thrown something like a music band (Sasuke answered all the questions regarding this fact through the gritted teeth). Sakura knew that Orochimaru’s school had a far better arts program, but would’ve never guessed that something like that would interest Sasuke.

She notes him now, on the other end of the train, and while chatting happily with Ino, she waves at him in the greetings, but he just turns, pretending not to see her.

Yeah. It’s not like they are back to being friends, after all. Just because every once in a while he gives in to her inquisitions, doesn’t really mean anything, and Sakura has to swallow the bitter after-taste of this constant rejection. At this point, she’s almost used to it.

“Just stop paying attention to him, he’s always so rude anyway,” - Ino leans close to her. With Sakura's station being one of the first ones of the line, she is almost always guaranteed a seat. Ino tried to make her feel guilty and trip her into giving the seat to her, for half the way, but screw Ino - Sakura deserved the seat, her commuting hours longer.

“He isn’t rude,” - only his manners are stiff. - “He’s only a bit dark.”

Sakura thinks that the new look suits him - the neck tattoo, the careless clothing, hair even wilder. Sakura thinks that his school uniform is way cooler than theirs.

“A bit?..” - Ino arches one of her perfect eyebrows. “Why is he always here, anyhow?”

“How is that weird? We’re always here, too,” - Sakura can’t even contain the humour such strong opposition of Ino inspires in her. Ino is almost childish.

“Yeah, but that’s not….” - Ino mumbles, defeated.

Sakura cocks her head:

“He’s awfully pretty, isn’t he?”

Ino rolls her eyes.

“I know. Shut up.”

Sakura releases a laugh.

“He’s just doing his own thing these days.”

“He’s always been only doing his own thing,” - Ino says, frustrated. - “How did you even manage being friends with him?”

“Ha, yes, I've always felt like he’s much cooler than me,” - Sakura gets distracted by looking at Sasuke. He is watching somewhere far, not noticing them. She misses Ino’s answer.

 

* * *

 

“What’s with all these people today?” - Ino wrinkles her nose, while trying to stand still with all the people pushing. She is sweating profusely. The day is hot, but it is mostly from the merciless crowd.

“All the workers are taking the early train,” - Sakura throws suggestion.

Ino just sighs in reply. Someone elbows her in the middle, she doesn’t bend, but winces.

“You are such a lucky dog,” - she says through the wince.

“It’s only because I get on the first station,” - Sakura says proudly from her seat.

“Luck, nothing more…” - Ino’s words fade, because there’s more movement, people wincing, stepping on each other. In the middle of the parting, moving crowd, Sakura notices Sasuke.

He looks like he might be sick.

After the train, Ino dashes out of the station, having said something about the bathroom and the meeting.

Sakura waits behind, so that all the people who are in hurry wouldn’t step on her.

She finds herself right behind Sasuke.

Making small steps behind him, she leans a bit forward.

“That was some awful crowd, right?” - she doesn’t really expect him to answer, so the silence in reply doesn’t hurt.

With the crowd dispensing, Sakura falls into step right beside him. If their shoulders push into each other, it is only because the crowd is that thick.

“What is the reason for it, do you think?” - she aims for casual, but when he doesn’t reply, she looks at him.

He looks almost green with nausea.

“Sasuke?..”

She doesn’t even think, just darts her hand and steadies him by the elbow.

“Let’s go, you need to sit,” - it is a testament to how sick he feels, that he lets her do all of it, and doesn’t argue. She pushes him on the bench, away from the crowd.

She looks around, and sees a vending machine, about fifty meters away from them.

She makes a run for it, inserting coins, and deciding to go with the Sprite. With Sasuke it is always safer to bet for something tasteless and colourless than to try guessing his taste. The can is cold inside her hands, and when she comes back, Sasuke sits right where she left him.

Well, if that isn’t a real surprise.

She pushes the cold can into his hands, crouching beside him to get a look at his face - he looks so out of it, he doesn’t tighten his grip, and the drink is about to drop, but Sakura thinks he is already more aware.

“I don’t need this,” - he says, words quiet.

“You’ll feel better,” - Sakura takes the can and moves it to his face. The colour is returning to him, his cheeks turning a delicate shade of pink. She’s never seen him like that. Sasuke, she knows, is undefeated, untouchable - both to cold and hot weather. She touches his cheek with the cold can, hoping to stop the colour from spreading.

“Hn,” - he winces.

She lowers the can, looking at him.

“You don’t like the public transport?”

“I hate crowds,” - he says with finality. Sakura sees that he looks just alive enough to leave her. She leaves the can on the seat, next to him.

“Oh, so you hate the crowds,” - she straightens out.

Just as she expects, he doesn’t say anything more.

“Isn’t it too early for your classes?” - she asks, just now noting the time. Ino warned her before she darted to be on time for the meeting. She might still make it, Sakura thinks.

“It’s not,” - he looks away from her.

“So that’s why you took the early train today?” - Sakura asks.

He makes an unclear sound of agreement. Sakura hopes he doesn’t feel worse.

“It’s kind of unusual. I haven’t seen you at all this past week, because we’ve been taking the early train. It’s all because of all those meetings related to the festival in our school…” - Sakura tells him.

“So go to your meeting,” - he says. Sakura decides that she is already late.

“Mmmm,” - she hums. - “You’re right, of course.”

And then, she sits next to him, on the bench. She isn’t going to trade anything for the chance to speak to Sasuke.

“That feels good,” - she says, her good mood unfaltering even though Sasuke is as rude as ever.

“What?” - he asks, annoyed. Sakura knows that Sasuke hates unclear sentences, needs to know everything he doesn’t understand.

Sakura looks at him with a side eye. He still doesn’t move. He probably feels too weak to walk away from her.

She decides to answer with a partial truth.

“It’s good to know that you have some weaknesses,” - she smiles, hoping to ease the punch. Knowing Sasuke, he will still take that as offence. Even if it isn’t.

He stands. Shit, just as she thought.

“You are always saying something annoying,” - he shakes with the effort, as he walks away from her.

“Do you feel better already?” - she asks, a bit of bitterness clear in her voice.

“… Go to your school.”

She wonders what is it that waits for him in the school, if he is so eager to go there, even feeling sick.

 

* * *

 

 “Oh, hey Sasuke,” - Kimimaro finds him. He still feels so sick after the morning. - “Didn’t know you like Sprite.”

Sakura started growing her hair out, and when they sat next to each other in the morning, he could feel their smell as they touched his skin. Was it a torture for her? It was for him.

“I was feeling sick,” - he answers.

 

* * *

  

“Hey, Sasuke!” - Sakura waves when she notes him approaching. - “Today there’s too many people again, isn’t it?”

It isn’t as bad as yesterday, but it’s about to be, Sakura can tell.

“Oh God, please, Sakura, no,” - Ino says with an under-voice.

“Hm?..” - Sakura pretends not to hear Ino’s words.

“He’s coming here,” - Ino quietly panics.

She is terrified even to be rude to Sasuke, Sakura thinks, amused. It’s just how Orochimaru’s students look like, she wants to tell her. He’s still same, they all know each other from childhood.

“What is it?” - Sakura asks as Sasuke stands in front of her, shouldering through the casual crowd.

“Your hands,” - he says, incomprehensible as ever.

“I’m sorry...” - she starts.

“Extend your palms,” - he commands and she obeys immediately.

He drops a hot drink into her palms.

“Oh, uf, hot, hot,” - she struggles with the drink, shaking the can, but, thankfully, not dropping it.

“This is to repay you for yesterday,” - he says. And then adds, - “And stop talking so informally with me. We aren’t friends.”

Sakura finally gets used to the hot metal and looks at the name of the drink.

“Oh,” - she tries to contain her laughter.

“Problems?” - he says, hostile.

“ _Oshiruko?_ ”

“If you don’t like it, you can just throw it off. I just needed to pay you back.”

“No, no! This is very dear to me, I don’t think I’ll even dare to drink from it…” - Sakura says. She doesn’t even care what it is. It’s been given to her from Sasuke. - “Thank you so much, Sasuke! It was very nice of you to repay me,” - she smiles at him, feeling so good.

“I think I just asked you to stop talking to me like that,” - he darkens.

“Such outstanding manners,” - she continues.

“You’re being annoying."

Her mouth snaps. But when he turns to leave, she extends her arm, just like she did it yesterday, capturing him.

“Hold on,” - she moves him back, and handles them into swiftly changing positions - forcing him to sit on her place.

She has always been so wickedly strong, Sasuke thinks. It is painful, he rubs the place she caught him by.

“Here,” - she smiles from above him, he glowers at her from below. - “I have a feeling there’s going to be quite a crowd in a bit,” she offers him an excuse.

“Just sit, is it so bad?” - she says, sensing that he wants to leave.

“Stop doing everything you want. The deal isn’t that I-“

“Oh, come on, it’s going to be hard to move anyway,” - she stops him, looks over people entering the train at the new stop. - “Just sleep. I know you can fall asleep without laying down.”

Like it’s possible to sleep like that, Sasuke thinks, feeling Sakura’s hair lowering onto him, as she towers over him.

Sakura notes Ino’s voiceless indignation. How! Could you! Give! That place! To him! - she reads Ino’s lips, but for the sake of Sasuke’s peaceful sleep, pretends not to understand.

 

* * *

 

It is truly amazing, the sheer power of that girl, Sasuke thinks bitterly on the third day that he is forced to sit down under her protection from the crowd.

The window is close, the fields are yellowing with the autumn, the skies are gray with the rain. In the darkness of the skies, he sees the reflection of her pink hair, and nothing else.

He risks looking at her, hearing her deep in the conversation with Ino. Her face is of too delicate colour to be reflected by the glass.

“So then he really can’t go,” - Sakura finishes some story.

“We still should go, is it our fault, he is that big of an idiot?”

“Sai and I are going to have to paint the rural, though…”

“That’ll be perfect, just us four, a double-date, if you will…”

Their voices come and go, and Sasuke tries not to hear. But he still hears too much.

The train swerves, and with a short scream, Sakura just manages to capture herself with her hands close to his head. Her pink hair - all Sasuke can see. He maintains his face.

“Sorry,” - she smiles at him, trying to regain her position. Her chest is just there, so Sasuke directs his eyes upward. He sees her collarbone, tender neck. Skin there is even paler than her face. There is nowhere to look, because she is surrounding him from all sides. - “It’s just the train,” she explains like he isn’t aware.

“What is it?” - she moves her face close to his. - “Do you feel alright?”

Her voice sounds like she talks to a child. Her hand sneaks to his forehead, and then her cool palm spreads on his skin.

“Don’t touch me,” - he moves her hand, hating how he trembles when his hand touches hers. He sends her hand to the side, and she brushes over his hair, accidentally touching his ear.

“Did you pierce your ear?” - at last, she straightens, moving somewhat away from his space. - “That’s quite cool.”

She still talks to him, like he is a child.

“Stop annoying me.”

Ino rolls her eyes when Sakura releases the breath like she’s been punched in her stomach with the words.

“I complimented you, you know that?” - Sakura persists, and Ino thinks that her stupid friend is literally asking for that treatment.

This is probably how their friendship worked in the middle school, Ino muses. Well, she’s always wondered what Uchiha was like as a friend.

 

* * *

 

Ino is always surprised how she never sees him at the station, but once she enters the train, he is in his usual place. He looks at nowhere in particular, but she still feels like he is very aware of his surroundings.

She comes up to him.

“She just texted me,” - Ino shows her phone, waving it around Sasuke, feeling so awkward around him. How does Sakura talk to him? He is so hostile. - “She overslept.”

“And you just came to me to say that.”

He is infuriating with his cold demeanour.

“Well,” - she loses her poise under his glare, - “she asked me to tell you that she’s sorry…”

She doesn’t continue, when Sasuke glares at her like he is only this close to murdering her.

Oh, fuck, she is not the person to do it.

“She just asked me to give you the message,” - she pushes.

 

* * *

  

“Message from Sasuke,” - Ino says casually the next day, - “He told you to stop giving him your seat.”

“Why did he tell you that?”

“Because you asked me to give him a message.”

“Oh, I see.”

“Do you even know what I had to go through because of you?” - Ino fumes, and Sakura feels her attention thinning. She hears her as if far away, - “Isn’t it good, anyway? There no more crowds…”

Sakura at last notices him - he is standing in the other coach, too far for her to make eye contact with him.

 

* * *

 

“Oh hey,” - she says happily, when she notices him on the train.

He turns away.

Well, it looks like everything returned to the regular routine. He looks at nothing, same as always, unreachable and dark, doing his own thing.

Sakura tells herself she is used to that bitter aftertaste of the rejection, but it still pierces.

 

* * *

 

“Sakura, you don’t want to join us?” - the last lesson is cancelled, but they are encouraged to study in the library. She shakes her head, no. Naruto furrows his brows at her, but Sai just waves her bye.

Before exiting the school, she leaves Ino a note not to wait on her, they’ll have to skip on their usual walk.

Somehow, the hours are so early, streets are empty, and so is the metro station. She walks melancholically through the couches, when she notices a familiar figure sitting all alone.

“If that isn’t Sasuke,” - she exclaims. - “Oh, wow, that must be the first time we’re meeting on the way back home?"

He glowers at her.

“Do you have the exam period, too?” - she moves to sit next to him, noting the book in his hands. - “C’mon, show me, what are you reading?”

“Who gave you the right to sit next to me?” - his voice doesn’t even lift to make the sentence a question.

“You can move, if you’d like,” - she says, casual.

“Why do I have to move?” - he says, even more hostile.

Sakura smiles at him, taking that as his agreement to sit close to her.

He moves his head sharply, as if sensing her smile. Well, that can’t be good.

“What?” - he deadpans.

“Nothing, I’m just feeling happy.”

Sasuke, god bless him, looks like he is genuinely confused by her. Happiness might be a very foreign emotion for him.

“You know, I felt so happy that so many of my old classmates went to this school with me, and also it was such a wild stroke of luck to end in the same class with Naruto. So I feel so happy that you and I, in a way, managed to keep in touch as well,” - she says, thinking out loud, hoping to somehow ease Sasuke’s tension around her. She’d be happy to be friends again, her confession can be all forgotten. - “Even if we don’t spend as much time as we used to.”

“It’s hard to explain why I feel so relieved that you and I are keeping in touch,” - she rambles on peacefully, sun turning the train and them orange.

“We didn’t spend that much time together when we were in middle school.”

“You’re probably right,” - it must have been more or less same, even back then. - “I wonder why…”

 _I remember you as one of my closest friends_ , Sakura isn’t that stupid as to say the words out loud.

So she swerves the talk, telling Sasuke about Naruto, and other classmates that he might remember. He doesn’t reply, but he also doesn’t seem to mind. He even asks about Sai’s boyfriend, apparently Sasuke knows him.

“So then Kiba was biting everyone, and Jiraiya-sensei made him walk on all fours, the whole day, because, you know, if he was going to act like a dog…” - she tells, chuckling a bit, just remembering.

“Hinata, of course, pitied him, and she brought him…” - she swallows, feeling Sasuke’s head dropping on her shoulder.

She should continue talking, and she rambles, confused of what she is doing, what she is talking of, only controlling her voice so that it’d be soft, so that it wouldn’t wake him, so that it would serve as a pathway to his dream. But she gives up easily, too flustered to continue.

She doesn’t really dare to move, but by the sound of his breaths, he is really asleep.

“Oh,” - she breathes out, so uncertain, not knowing what to do. Her muscles tense, she tells herself to enjoy that moment, his head heavy against her, his whole body big and tender as it is so unprotected.

He is so unshielded right now, she's never known he was capable of being defenceless.

His station is announced next, before she has the time to think about anything properly, and for a moment she is torn - she doesn’t want to wake him. She whispers, “Sasuke, it’s your station,” hating to interrupt his sleep. She knows he wouldn’t like to know he fell asleep against her. It’s best if he were to wake on his own. But he doesn’t wake, how tired he must be. She shakes him reluctantly, his station is already there, the doors are opening, he’ll hate her if he misses it.

He wakes with a sudden jerk, and Sakura looks at him, startled.

“Oh, you even drooled,” - she gathers from the look at Sasuke that it was a deep sleep. He doesn’t quite understand where he is. And then, in the next moment, he does. All his defences and walls going up in one go and he narrows his eyes on her.

“So annoying,” - he tells her before running through the closing doors of the train.

On the station, Sasuke angrily wipes his mouth, feeling the stickiness. It disgusts him to the core. He can’t wipe it out.

“What the hell,” - he mutters quietly.

 

* * *

 

“Oh, here we meet yet again,” - Sakura says happily. Ino has a club meeting, and Sakura is taking yet again the half-empty train on the way back. It is good to be free. - “When are you done with your exams?”

She lowers to the seat.

“Can you not sit here?” - he asks her, quiet.

“But it’s free here,” - she says, hoping to show him she didn’t mind that he fell asleep on her. She isn’t going to make it awkward.

He falls asleep on her, again.

“I must be the most boring story-teller,” - Sakura thinks proudly. But his station comes announced as next, as it always does, very quickly. She nudges her shoulder, and whispers, “Sasuke, it’s your stop,” somehow hating the idea of awakening him too violently.

He only sinks further into her.

His profile is almost regal, his hair tickling her neck. With her eyes she traces the little of his face that isn’t furrowed into her. He looks like he is made out of marble, a god created by man educated of beauty, rather than man made by chaotic nature. Him being here, defenceless, on her mercy, and so god-like as ever, is a tension on the strings of her self-control.

She lowers herself towards him, his hair smelling clean, pushes into him, but tenderly. She tells herself she is trying to awake him, but she is moving too slowly for that. When her hand sneaks towards his skin, it is hard to understand that she has any type of control over it. She only wonders, as she wondered so many times before - what is his skin like. When she touches it, and it is equal amount of smoothness of marble and softness of milk, just as it looks, she can’t stop. She touches with her fingertips his cheek, and he stirs, but instead of waking, he only moves his face so that it is even closer to her. Her lips are just there, mere breath away from his temple, and with their next intake of the breath, or maybe it is the train stopping in it’s track that closes the gap, the empty space somehow ceases to exist, Sakura’s lips skim over his skin, and, again, startling, he wakes.

Sakura guesses she can’t pretend this hasn’t happened, and he understands immediately. Her hand drops from him, awkward.

When he leaves her with the usual **_annoying_** , it’s not even a bit of a surprise.

 

* * *

  

“Oh, hey, Sasuke isn’t here,” - Ino looks over the passengers of the train.

“… Looks like it.”

“This is kind of rare. He’s probably got some really nasty virus, what kind of virus would even take someone like him?”

“That must be it,” - Sakura says, voice tense under control.

“What’s more important - I heard from Naruto that there is a guy…” - Ino repeats some idiotic rumour about the guy who confessed to Sakura.

Ino nudges her, waiting for details, but spills the details herself.

“He is an upper-class man, isn’t he?” - she keeps going, so immersed, she doesn’t even need Sakura to talk, so Sakura just bobs in half the right places.

She thinks back to their last confrontation. Something about the way he was holding himself reminded her of that last time she’s seen him in middle school - the hard way his hands were gripping the backpack’s straps, almost white, almost shaking with tension now and then.

So much for her acting like he could forget her confession.

 

* * *

 

“Sasuke!” - Karin waves him. She doesn’t use that train, usually, her house closer to school, but she told him she’s planned to visit her grand-parents in the village, - “I saved you a spot.”

She tries to stand up, but he makes no move to bring himself closer.

“Sit,” - he tells her. The crowd fills in, the rush hour bringing the workers home, and he has to fight nausea.

“You are studying so diligently these days, Sasuke,” - Karin still moves to him and loses her seat, so they both end up pinned by the human walls from each sides.

He is going to be sick for hours, afterwards, he thinks, resigned.

 

* * *

 

“Why the sour face?” - Ino notices.

“Why, I wonder,” - Sakura draws.

“You should tell me what happened today. Was it the upper-class man? I heard about him…” - Sakura dozes out, last thing she wants to think of is school deals and dramas.

She lets her gaze roam over the train, the people around them.

 _He isn’t here, again_ , Sakura thinks and puffs, annoyed.

“Do you love him?” - Ino demands.

“Maybe, I might,” - she answers dreamily.

“Don’t you dare!” - Ino seethes.

“Huh?”

“Don’t you go off starting the relationships when Shikamaru and I are breaking up. I will feel too lonely,” - Ino complains.

“I don’t even know what we are talking about.”

“Haven’t you heard? What happened today? The entire school was there when we-“

“Oh, Ino, who needs to hear rumours from your class?”

“I literally could rip your head off right now."

“Come on, weren’t you going to tell me about the latest drama in your relationship?” - Sakura says, apologetically.

“Yes! I swear, I will break with him this time,” - she immediately drops her sullenness, and simmers in her rage at Shikamaru.

“Do you promise?” - Sakura says, laughing a little in scepticism.

“Oh, yes, I do!…”

Sakura loses the track of conversation, until she zooms in, suddenly, when Ino says, prior to nothing,

“Oh, by the way, Sasuke was there.”

“WHERE?”

“Well, I had to take a train from Shikamaru, it’s the one that is the next after ours. Shit, if that one isn’t busy. It is so crowded…”

Sakura thinks about the metro schedule. She’ll need to exit on the next stop to catch that train.

“Doesn’t that guy feel bad in the crowds?” - Ino keeps going. - “Why did he decide to switch the trains, I wonder…”

Sakura stands, she can catch the train back to school and then she’ll be able to sit on the train with Sasuke.

“Even though, he does me a huge a service, obviously,” - Ino doesn’t notice her frantic movements until Sakura hurries to dash through the closing doors:

“Sorry, Ino, I forgot something, go back without me!”

Ino tries to leave with her, “hold on, I can go with you, I need to tell you,” but the train doors are already closing.

It doesn’t take that long for her to come back to the station next to their school. As she quits the train, she sees him, on the opposite of the rails. He is alone, waiting for the train that isn’t scheduled to arrive for at least an hour.

He notices her.

“There you are,” - Sakura smiles and waves.

She thinks his eyes widen, but it’s hard to say across the platform. She has the time to re-enter the metro, and then she’ll have a full hour to kill with Sa-

And the train comes!

Shit!

She screams at him: “Don’t sit on it!”, and then the train hides Sasuke from her.

For nothings more than few moments. And then, it leaves, without ever stopping.

“That’s a bullet-train,” - she hides her throughly red face in embarrassment. Sasuke looks at her, unimpressed.

Well, she resolves, and drops onto the platform, running through the cables.

“Sasuke, I’m sorry,” - she says, coming closer. As she comes towards him, she looks up and says:

“So, hey! It’s been a while,” - she can’t help smiling. - “How’s everything?”

“Don’t even think about coming closer,” - Sasuke says, as she settles her arms onto the platform, about to lift.

She drops her hands, and stands back. She needs to hope there isn’t another one of those bullet-trains coming.

“That hurts,” - she says, trying to smile bravely.

“Hurts? You?” - his face is enraged. - "You are always so careless! You don’t even think when you’re acting, just being completely inadequate.”

Oh, well, she’s always known she annoys him a lot.

“Tell me,” - she leans her hands on the platform and lays her head over them. - “Do you really hate me so much? You even changed your schedule, all so that you wouldn’t have to be near me?”

“Do I hate you? How can I not? You treat me like I am weak! You constantly act so disrespectfully with me! You’re acting like we’re friends! Always surrounded by so many people, and you are so loud! You keep smiling all the time, that’s the most annoying, I hated you in the middle school, too,” - Sasuke spits, thinking, _I wanted to kill you, day after day_. - “It is a torture to be friends with you."

Sakura looks at his face, transfixed. He is flushed red while ranting.

“I’m sorry I…” - she doesn’t know what she’s saying. - “I understand…”

He looks like he is about to cry.

That last day she’s seen him in the middle school. _It is a torture to be friends with you_ , she screamed at him.

“You are very cute now,” - she says instead of what she wants to say. - “You’re always cute, but right now…”

That stops him.

“… Stop treating me like I’m a child.”

“You’re the last person I would treat like a child,” - she says. He flushes further, maybe because her suggestion isn’t that heavily buried.

“You’re so very annoying.”

She exhales, dropping her hands from the platform. She looks at Sasuke, he is calmer now. So out of reach.

“I’ll behave. I’ll be more respectful. Whatever it is that you don’t like, I’ll stop doing it. So let’s ride together?”

 

* * *

  

He falls asleep against her, again.

The exams are almost over.

“Sasuke, it’s our stop soon,” - she draws in soft voice. - “Heeey.”

So, she doesn’t want him to wake? So what?

“Ah, honestly, Sasuke…” - she draws in her lowest voice. - “If you aren’t going to wake right now.”

She moves her head against his, rubbing their skin softly against each other.

The sensation is addicting. His breaths puff on her skin, his mouth a bit open, she can smell him.

“Sasuke, it is so impossible,” - she says softer and softer in voice absent. He wakes with her kiss, as she barely gets a taste of him.

“Oh, um,” - she tries to think of something to say.

“Annoying.”

 

* * *

  

“Oh, Sasuke again stopped riding this train? I wonder why,” - Ino said looking over passengers the next day.

“Honestly, no idea,” - Sakura says darkly.

 

* * *

 

“Sasuke, is everything alright?” - Kimimaro is the only one who risks coming up to him after one long week.

And just like that, the memory resurfaces.

He flushes, and hates himself for it - “Why am I?!…”

He punches the table, angry.

“Some people are just very disrespectful.”

 

* * *

 

“So, Sakura, how is your love life?” - Ino asks, casual, about to brag about the newest update of her and Shikamaru’s love life.

Sakura’s face does something ridiculous - it melts into one happy smile.

“No way!” - Ino says. An upper-class man, no less. That actually might make Sakura’s social standing higher than hers.

“How far have you gone?”

Sakura laughs, and Ino can feel it. She can literally feel it.

“What?! What’s that laugh?! You tell me everything, right this moment!-"


End file.
